Vancouver’s affordable housing plan a rush decision: opponents

Zoe McKnight, Vancouver Sun10.12.2012

Twenty-six neighbourhood associations, residents’ groups and committees wrote to Vancouver city council opposing the adoption of the city’s affordable housing plan before council approved it last week. File: Green Party candidate Adriane Carr campaigns on Saturday, November 19, 2011 at Broadway and Granville in Vancouver.File
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Adriane Carr speaks to media out side City Hall in Vancouver on March 5, 2012.Wayne Leidenfrost
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Twenty-six neighbourhood associations, residents’ groups and committees wrote to Vancouver city council opposing the adoption of the city’s affordable housing plan before council approved it last week.

A copy of the letter, emailed to councillors Oct. 3 and obtained by The Vancouver Sun, urged approval be delayed to give community groups more time to respond.

Council ignored the request and voted on the recommendations that same day.

“We were hoping they would study them, look at them and study them, but not approve them,” said Doreen Braverman, president of the Arbutus Ridge Community Association.

The recommendations were from the final report of the mayor’s task force on affordability, which was publicly released on Sept. 26, just a week before the vote.

Many community groups felt that was not enough time for the information to sink in.

“Three working days since the report was made public is not enough time for the general public or councillors to consider the sweeping recommendations in the staff report,” the letter states. (The vote was originally set for Oct. 2, but was deferred to Oct. 3.)

“The recommendations include broad policy changes for the City of Vancouver affecting land use, zoning, density, civic finances, and much more.”

The groups said the task force recommendations override existing neighbourhood plans “without legitimate public process” and called the community consultation process “unsatisfactory.”

The plan permits up to 20 new high-density projects like townhouses, row houses and 3.5-storey buildings within 1.5 blocks of any of the city’s major streets, and new six-storey towers near neighbourhood centres or shopping areas if they are well-served by transit. “This affects most of the city,” the letter argues.

Projects that would be considered for arterial development must adhere to strict criteria to make them more affordable. These include buildings that are 100-per-cent rental or priced at least 20-per-cent below market value, or otherwise show enhanced affordability, as determined by the city.

Before approving the plan, council amended it so no more than two projects can be built within 10 blocks of an arterial street.

“We object to one-size-fits-all,” Braverman said, adding she was skeptical that increased density will make the city more affordable. “Why do we have to be dense? It ruins the character of the city and density costs money. The more people you have, the more footprints you’ve got and the more services you need and that’s not exactly the way it’s supposed to be.”

During the Oct. 3 meeting, Green party councillor Adriane Carr urged council to delay adopting the task force recommendations until public consultations could be held, but her motion was defeated.

In an interview Wednesday, Carr said the range of groups wanting council to hold off covered the whole city. “Virtually every residents’ association throughout the city was saying the same thing to us: ‘Please delay.’”

“What Vision [Vancouver] argued in the public meeting was that we have to move forward, this is urgent.”

Said Carr: “I’m a bit in shock they passed such a massive change in our city without going to public hearings and public meetings and thorough public consultation.”

Many of the neighbourhood groups contacted by The Sun said they were concerned both with the recommendations in the report and with how they were presented. Others objected to being shut out of the initial decision-making.

Fern Jeffries, co-chair of the False Creek Residents Association, said by email that her group is concerned that the report “undermines the community planning process.

“Further, the report allows for density with no guarantee of affordable housing. More housing isn’t necessarily more affordable housing.”

On the other side, Christine Ackermann, president of the West End Residents’ Association, which did not sign the letter, said she was mostly happy with the housing plan, especially the creation of a city-owned housing authority, which her group has long advocated.

“The devil, of course, will be in the details.”

The West End is in the midst of a long-term community planning process, which will involve plenty of consultation with the city, Ackermann said, adding: “I would not sign a letter like that.”

But Randy Helten of West End Neighbours, a planning and zoning community watch group, said the task force recommendations were incomplete, vague and lacked “adequate information for the public or elected officials to make a decision in the public interest.

“Any intelligent person looking at this report would have a very hard time knowing whether their neighbourhood or their property is included in this rezoning.”

Part of the plan does require city staff to present the interim affordable housing rezoning policy to citizen advisory and neighbourhood groups for feedback by next summer.

But the 20 interim rezoning projects, while subject to the normal approval process, can go ahead before that formal consultation takes place, the mayor’s office confirmed.

Many groups said their input should have been more influential from the beginning.

“This is what citizen action is all about, it’s a matter of organizing people and getting them to have their say,” said Tom Durrie, president of the area council for Grandview-Woodland, which is in the middle of crafting its community plan.

His area would have been subject to the “thin streets” provision, which involves reducing road allowances in order to build houses along underutilized streets and laneways. (Public outcry prompted council to downgrade the project as a concept to be considered by the three neighbourhoods instead of requiring them to do so.)

After an interim report by the housing task force was released this summer, the city created an opinion survey, available online from mid-June to mid-August. It received 151 responses, which the report calls a “small snapshot” of opinions.

“That was one of the complaints. It was not well publicized and people didn’t know about it,” Durrie said. Others were concerned that the survey required respondents to reveal personal information, like their income.

The survey was advertised via social media like the city’s Twitter account and Facebook page, in news releases, and a link on the city’s home page.

Mayor Gregor Robertson was out of town and unavailable to comment Thursday, but councillor Geoff Meggs, who was on the task force, disagreed there was an “undue rush” in moving forward with its recommendations.

He noted the task force started work 10 months ago, and there was a chance for groups to comment this summer.

“The concern that we’ve had is to make sure council was able to get started on a lot of these significant initiatives and make some convincing headway over the next year or two,” he said. “We hear all the time, at public hearings as well, from people who want us to take stronger steps to bring down the cost of housing, including some of the people in those community groups.”

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